A Nice Round Number

Hello all!  It's a strangely contradictory post today.  On the one hand, we're celebrating the 100th challenge over at Fun With ATCs - and the theme for the fortnight is, fittingly, 100!

But there's a touch of sadness hanging over the celebration... as this is the final Fun With ATCs challenge.

As it happens, I'd already reluctantly decided I had to leave the team.  I've had a fantastic year, and have loved playing alongside my wonderful team-mates, but time seems to be in increasingly short supply and keeping up with deadlines keeps getting harder.  So the 100th challenge coinciding with my one year anniversary as a DT member seemed to make a nice round number for calling it a day.  

But I'm so sad that this will now also be the last challenge of all.  We've had so many amazing entries over the months from many loyal followers, and it's been great to see all your tiny masterpieces.

So here's my final inspiration piece for you - and in a grand finale, I'm offering you two versions of it! - and you'll find more fabulous makes here to fire your crafty imaginations.

I started by cutting a piece of thick card with the Tim Holtz ATC and Corners die, and then ran it through the BigShot again with the X-Cut Chronology Cogs embossing folder.  I cut the numbers 1, 0 and 0 with the Movers and Shapers Cargo Numbers dies.




As you can see, my brain first of all went to glowing pinks, golds and oranges - using Finnabair's Sunrise, Sunset papers, inked with Picked Raspberry, Wild Honey and Spiced Marmalade Distress Inks...

...with a heavy spritzing of Perfect Pearls in Pearl for a shimmery look.

But then it just didn't feel quite "me"... and for my final piece, I wanted it to feel a bit more "me".

Fortunately, I hadn't yet stuck anything down...







So I started over with some paint, and turned the whole thing blue - much more "me"! 

I did lots of dry-brushing once the blue was done, bringing white down from the top left corner, and black up from the bottom right corner to create a shift of shadow and highlighting across the ATC.

No idea what colours I used precisely, I'm afraid - this was made weeks before the house move, and my brain has turned to mush in the meantime!

But I do know that, again, there's some Perfect Pearls mist in Pearl to add a celebratory shimmer.








I re-did the numbers with some DecoArt One-Step Crackle over the dark blue paint (Fresco Pea Coat, I think) again highlighting it with white paint to give the sense of that light source from above. 

And the same treatment for the ATC corners to frame the whole thing.






I'm pretty pleased with the finished effect - though it is one of those pieces that changes colour according to the light hitting it, so it's much more fun to have it in your hand and shift it around to catch the shimmer!

Do hop over to Fun With ATCs and then hop around to visit my team-mates - they'd love to hear what you think - and we'd all love to see what you come up with for the 100 challenge this fortnight, all on a 2.5 x 3.5 sized creation of course!

Thanks so much for stopping by today.  

If you've nothing better to do I'll be back at 7pm (UK time) with my final sneak peek of the week for PaperArtsy - maybe I'll see you again then?  

In case you missed them, you can catch up with Sunday's post here, and Monday's is here.






Oh, and since it's Tuesday, you'll also find me over at Artistic Outpost today.  It's Sneak Peek mayhem... see what I mean about deadlines?!

But, for now, it's a very fond farewell to Fun With ATCs.  I do hope as many of you as possible will be able to play along and give the challenge a really good send-off.

Farewell is a beautiful and a soft word and yet it is a horrible and a heavy thing too!
Mehmet Murat Ildan

Don't be dismayed at goodbyes.  A farewell is necessary before you can meet again.  And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those who are friends.
Richard Bach

Deeper Shades of Night

Hello all!  

Things are just about returning to normal here... thank you so much for all your kind thoughts and well-wishing recently.

It's time for the new challenge at Fun With ATCs, and the theme this fortnight is Night. 

If you hop over, you'll find lots of inspiration from my fabulous team-mates, and here's my starter for ten.

It's related to my Black, White and Red Lonely Leaf ATC from a couple of months ago - I think this could be the start of a series!

And it's a complete contrast to the multiple images of my Around the World in 80 Stamps ATC... this one is very simple.

I used one of my very few wood-mounted stamps - the gorgeous Tim Holtz bare branches - and stamped it in Jet Black Archival onto a Specialty Stamping paper ATC.

I hand cut a little disc of paper to use as the mask for my moon, and then inked Chipped Sapphire Distress Ink onto the ATC.








I worked more layers of inking towards the top of the ATC to get that sense of the gathering night overhead.














And then the little Hero Arts alphabet set provided the single word 'night' - an echo of the single word 'alone' on the Lonely Leaf - this is shaping up to be quite a dark set of ATCs!









And there you have it.   Do hop over to see what the rest of the team have come up with, and then we'd love to see your take, so come and share your 2.5 by 3.5 inch ATCs on the theme of Night with us at Fun With ATCs.  See you there!

The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night.
From Dance Dance Dance by Haruki Murakami






Oops, I forgot - there's also another (C*******s) card over at Artistic Outpost today...  Better late than never, eh?!

Around the World in 80 Stamps

Hello all... just slipping in an actual post between all the PaperArtsy sneak peeks.  PA project 1 can be seen here, number 2 is here and, just like with buses, there'll be another along in a minute - well, at 7pm this evening to be strictly accurate!





But first, it's time for a new challenge over at Fun With ATCs.  


And it's okay, you don't really have to use 80 stamps; but we would like to see you use At Least Three Stamps on your 2.5 x 3.5 Artists Trading Card.


This seemed the perfect chance to use the teeny tiny Tim Holtz stamps Tiny Things - they're unbelievably adorable vintage images, and give incredibly sharp, detailed stampings.


To make the most of them, I stamped them in Archival ink onto Specialty Stamping Paper.  It really does give a clearer, sharper result...











I've actually used seven stamps in total - just showing off now, of course!!

The very dapper chap (I suppose the post title makes him Phileas Fogg...) is attempting to make a decision as to which form of transportation he should select for the next stage of his Around the World journey.  















And with the fabulous balloon, or the vintage car...












... or the splendid aeroplane, or of course that wonderful 'motorcyclette' to choose from, I'm not surprised he's looking a little indecisive.

Still, at least he has the globe to guide him on the way; I'm sure he'll 'enjoy the journey' (from the Simple Sayings stamp set) once he gets started!

All the panels are mounted on padded tape in varying thicknesses so that you get layers of dimension, and some gentle inking with Vintage Photo DI finishes things off.









I'm trying to keep it short today since there's so much going on.  

As I said, there'll be another PaperArtsy post later this evening, and of course there's also a project to be seen over at Artistic Outpost today (shhhh... it's a C*******s card!), so if you've got time to hop over there, that'd be great too!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and I'll see you out there in Craftyblogland some time soon.

Anything one man can imagine, other men can make real.
From Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne

Clean and Simple Experimenting

Hello and welcome everyone, with an especially big welcome to the newest followers. It's lovely to have your company here at Words and Pictures today - another busy day, I'm afraid.

Anyone who was around late last night will already have seen the sneak peek for my project over at The Artistic Stamper today - and check out the bottom of this post for my other bit of omnipresence - yes, since it's Tuesday, I'm at Artistic Outpost too!

But here and now, it's time to tickle your creative tastebuds for the new challenge at Fun With ATCs.  For this fortnight, it's CAS all the way - Clean and Simple please, on a 2.5 x 3.5 Artist's Trading Card.


Regulars will know I'm not much of a CAS crafter (though I thank you all for your lovely feedback on my broken roof tile in the CAS style!), so this was definitely a challenge for me.


But it was a chance to crack open my new Tim Holtz stamps - utterly irresistible scientific apparatus images - and I ended up with a trio of ATCs, stamped according to how we were taught to write up our science experiments at O' Level.









We had to break down the report on any experiment into three sections:






Method - what we did and how we did it (and usually including a diagram - finally a use for all those protractors and set squares in my pencil case!)

Results - what we observed and data we collected
















Conclusion - writing up what we had learned and what we could deduce from what we did and what we observed







So that's my very simple (Clean and Simple) set of ATCs, stamped in Jet Black Archival on Specialty Stamping Paper to really let those images shine.  And the words, of course, are done with my little Hero Arts alphabet.







I swiped the edges of the ATCs along the ink pad to get the borders, and that really was that.









I hope you'll find time to come and play along with the Clean and Simple challenge this fortnight.  You'll find lots more inspiration from my amazing team-mates, plus all the challenge details, over at Fun With ATCs.






And if you have time, I would love it if you popped over to either The Artistic Stamper to check out this...












... or to Artistic Outpost to check out this...

... or even both!!  Thank you so much, and I'll see you out there in Craftyblogland soon.

All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

Every great inspiration is but an experiment.
Charles Ives

Earn Your Stripes

Good grief (Charlie Brown), it's busy here at Words and Pictures this week!  I'm just squeezing in my DT post for the new challenge at Fun With ATCs between PaperArtsy projects.  I hope you've enjoyed Projects One and Two so far - number Three will appear later today.

But first of all it's time to invite you to come and play with our new Fun With ATCs challenge theme: Stripes (I told you it was busy!).  

Remember, Artist Trading Card size projects only, please - that's 2.5 x 3.5 inches.  And here's my stripy offering for you...

I originally set off in a completely different direction with this.  Here's the quick proof...






Stripey kraft glassine, run through a stripey embossing folder...






Stripey Tim Holtz stencil, overlaid with Artistic Outpost stripey ticking stamp from the Kudzu Kafe set...







But I was thinking too hard, and then I got completely stuck, so I abandoned all that for another day and another project.








Instead, I grabbed some tissue tape and just let what wanted to happen happen.




It's just such lovely stuff - easy to work with, so pretty, and it does most of the work for you.  I just laid down some strips of it onto a piece of 2.5 x 3.5 cardstock, and there you have them: stripes!

You know what?  I was pretty tempted to just leave it there!

But no, I reached for the Fresco Snowflake, and whitewashed it.  I usually just put a blob of paint on the craft mat, give it a quick spritz of water and then mix that direct on the paintbrush and onto the project.

Then I remembered I had some lovely Kaisercraft lace, quite narrow, which would work nicely as textural and dimensional stripes, so I grabbed a few pieces of that.

You get five different styles within one pack - pretty handy.

And then, although there are already plenty of words going on within the tissue tape, I thought we should really have some more prominent ones.

So I found myself a nice wide Tim Holtz sentiment - not too tall either - that could be another "stripe" within my ATC.  













I distressed the edges with the Tim Holtz paper distresser, and that was really pretty much that.  

Simple, stripey, and it really makes me happy!

I hope you'll have time to pop over to Fun With ATCs and see the lovely inspiration from my fabulous team-mates, and - even better - I hope you'll have time to play along with our Stripes challenge this fortnight.








I'll be back at 7pm today with my third and final PaperArtsy post for September.  It would be wonderful to see you then.

Oh... and I nearly forgot: since it's Tuesday, I'm over at Artistic Outpost today too.  I think I need a lie-down!

Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
Marcus Aurelius

The fact that we live at the bottom of a deep gravity well, on the surface of a gas covered planet going around a nuclear fireball 90 million miles away and think this to be normal is obviously some indication of how skewed our perspective tends to be.
Douglas Adams

Lonely Leaf

Hello all, and welcome to Words and Pictures.  My profound apologies that I'm so behind with visiting you all.  After my internet meltdown, I then had a couple of weeks where work made any crafting or crafty-visiting virtually impossible... but I'm doing my best, and I hope to get back on track very soon.






You've arrived in time for the new challenge over at Fun With ATCs - and an unusual creation for me.  


The theme is Black, White and Red, and regulars will know that's not exactly my comfort zone!  


So, I thought: "Well, if it's going to be different, let's make it really different!"  So here it is...


I used one of Ranger's Specialty Stamping Paper ATCs, and stamped Tim Holtz's bare branches in Jet Black Archival.













That got a good blast from the heat tool to make sure it was dry before I stamped the word 'alone', using the little Hero Arts alphabet set.












For the leaf, I saturated a bit of leftover card with Cherry Pie Dylusions Spray, and then used a little leaf punch I bought in Norway a few months ago, when I did some work over there.  

It was pretty much the only thing I could afford (small bottle of Diet Coke £4.50!?!).















I brushed the sides of the ATC across the surface of the Archival ink pad to give a little definition around the edges, and that was pretty much that.













I hope you like my 'hop out of kin' project.  

You can find more inspiration from my brilliant team-mates for this fortnight's challenge over at Fun With ATCs, and I hope you'll find time to join in with our Black, White and Red theme.  Can't wait to see what you create.

For now, thank you so much for stopping by... and I really hope I'll be round to visit you very soon!

And something a bit different here too:

What's black and white and red all over?
A blushing zebra

What's black and white and read all over?
A newspaper

What's black and white and black and white and black and white and black and blue?
A penguin falling downstairs









If you'd prefer something a little more in my usual vein, you'll find the Coffee Guys over at
Artistic Outpost today - just in case you missed them the first time around!

Fly high, fly free

Hello everyone!  Thanks so much for dropping in.  It's time for a new challenge over at Fun With ATCs today, and it's a good one: we'd like to see Die-cuts on your 2.5 x 3.5 Artists' Trading Cards.  As usual, there are some wonderful makes from my inspirational design team-mates, and here's my offering for you.

I should probably apologise for the fact that my die-cuts have slightly burst out of the 2.5 x 3.5 boundaries of the ATC - what can I say?  My butterfly happens to have spread his wings at just the wrong moment!





I started with wanting to use my new (well - "ebay new") Tim Holtz Fanciful Flight die, and I'm
afraid even the size restrictions weren't going to stop me.

There's lots of recycling on this ATC too: old Coke cans and acetate packaging, as well as a tag which had been sitting around on my craft table for ages, awaiting its chance.













I started by applying alcohol inks to a piece of acetate cut from a die package (see, even using the packaging from die-cuts - does that make up for breaking the size rules?).  

Here's the panel balanced on the blending tool used to create it!

Then I applied the same colours to the back of a cut-up Diet Coke can - Stream, Denim, Bottle Green, maybe a couple of others...  

But when it came to the cutting out, I forgot to reverse the surface for the second set of wings, so had to start again.

I'm glad I did, since I'd decided in the meantime that it would be better to have some colour contrast between the lattice and the solid wings.  

So on the second can, I used some of the same blues and greens, but added Cranberry, Rust and some others to the mix too.










The great thing about having the wings made of acetate and metal is that they are super-mouldable
when you heat them...













... and hold the shape beautifully once you've got it how you want it.











I wanted plenty of dimension for the body, so I stuck a piece of the inked tin onto thick card before running it through the BigShot.  


I used some Viva Decor Precious Metal paint to colour the edges of the body.  


(Sorry not sure of the colour, and unable to check - since I'm still having to do all my writing and posting from a coffee shop while I wait for the return of my internet connection!)


And the antennae are made of rusty wire, curled round some dowelling.

I stuck the tag - which I'd wrinkle-free distressed some time ago - onto some card, and cut it out using the TH ATC and Corners die.

It's probably Stormy Sky, Weathered Wood, maybe some Faded Jeans - not sure any more, I'm afraid, but quite good as a "sky" background, eh?

I cut the corners out of some of the leftover tin can scraps.








The stamped words had been hovering in my mind from the beginning...















... so it was just a matter of deciding what colour to stamp them in (Sepia Archival) and where, using my little Hero Arts alphabet.












The butterfly is glued down with Glossy Accents - fiddly getting the antennae to stay put without getting tangled in each other, but worth it. 

And I do love how he's just ready to take off.







Since I've had no internet, I've had some time to make the most of the sunshine in the garden over the weekend - and I've had plenty of butterflies taking time out from the Buddleia to perch on my arm or leg.  Such a privilege to get to observe these exquisite creatures close up...

I'd like to enter this in the following:
At Vintage Stamping Challenges they are playing Wings and Things
At Out of a Hat Creations, they'd like to see Things Beginning with B - do I need to say what mine is?
And at Simon Says Stamp Monday Challenge the theme is Make the Cut, using die-cuts 

Lovely coincidence there with the Simon challenge: you could do the double too with the Fun With ATCs Die-Cut challenge! In any case, do pop across to see what my team-mates have been up to, and I hope to see you there, or elsewhere in Craftyblogland soon.

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
Nathaniel Hawthorne






As it's Tuesday, I'm also over at Artistic Outpost today, with a focus on the stamps from my Little Boy Bluebird canvas, so if you've time to spare you could always hop on over...

Happy Crafting, all!